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David Lidington MP invites Sir David Higgins to the constituency to discuss HS2

On 31 July David Lidington hosted a visit by Sir David Higgins, Chairman of HS2 Ltd, to his constituency to see the impact HS2 will have on the local area. Sir David visited London Road, Bacombe Lane, Ellesborough Road, St Mary's Church and Nash Lee Lane in Wendover; Old Risborough Road in Stoke Mandeville; Oat Close and the Oxford Road in Aylesbury, and Fairford Leys.

During the visit, local parish and HS2 campaign leaders met Sir David and explained to him in detail the impact that HS2 would have on their community, and the further measures on compensation and environmental mitigation that they wanted to see put in place.

You can view a short video from David Lidington about the visist here.

David Lidington said,

"I’m pleased David Higgins agreed to come and was happy to meet local campaigners.

He was given some direct but courteous messages. Sir David will be in no doubt about the strength of opposition locally to HS2 and he also saw that the local campaigners understood the detail intimately.

I think all the main issues to do with mitigation and compensation were covered, from the case for more tunnelling to landscaping and screening and the impact of construction traffic on local roads.

Sir David listened closely to what people were saying to him. Obviously he has been given the job of building the line, but he mentioned several times during the visit his experience of delivering the Olympic Park for 2012 and the changes that he had made to that scheme to lessen the impact on residents in East London. We'll have to see whether HS2 Ltd does now take greater account of local concerns but it can only be a good thing that the man in charge now sees our area as something more than just names on a map.